WEEKEND EXCURSION

WEEKEND EXCURSION; The House, The Scandal, The Poet

By GRACE GLUECK

Published: November 23, 2001

AMHERST, Mass.—
No hint of scandal today disturbs the peaceful decrepitude of the Evergreens, the picturesque Italianate house at 214 Main Street, next door to Emily Dickinson's house, the Homestead.

But in its 19th-century heyday, the Evergreens was enveloped in scandal. And this town where Emily and her family are today something of an academic industry has not quite forgotten. The house, which came perilously close to being bulldozed, has now been opened to the public for the first time in its 145-year existence.

It was once occupied by Emily's brother, Austin (1829-1895), and his family. A respected lawyer, he married a cultivated woman by whom he had three children. But in his early 50's he fell in love with the much younger Mabel Loomis Todd, the winsome wife of an astronomy professor at Amherst College; they carried on a torrid affair for some 14 years, until his death.

The affair not only bankrupted his marriage but also created a battlefield between the two Dickinson households and affected the publication of Emily's poetry. It ''set up enmities that have reverberated into the 21st century,'' writes Polly Longsworth, a historian who has done extensive research on the Dickinson family. Having published her account of the affair, ''Austin and Mabel'' (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1984), she is currently writing a biography of Emily Dickinson.

Ms. Longsworth is also one of three Dickinson scholars who have contributed lively essays to a new book, ''The Dickinsons of Amherst'' by Jerome Liebling (University Press of New England, 2001). It highlights Mr. Liebling's haunting photographs of the Evergreens and of the Homestead, an imposing Federal-style brick residence where Emily and her younger sister, Lavinia, continued to live after their parents died.

The book, with contributions also by Christopher Benfey and Barton Levi St. Armand, professors of English at Mount Holyoke College and Brown University, respectively, unofficially celebrates the public opening of the Evergreens, unoccupied since its last owner died in 1988. It now joins the Homestead, open to the public since 1965, as a destination for visitors.

Although I have spent a good deal of time in Amherst over the years and visited the Homestead, like almost everyone else in town I had seen the Evergreens only through the tall hemlocks that partially screen it from the street. So it was with a sense of anticipation that my husband and I went there on a recent Saturday to join an invited crowd in poking around the house's ground-floor rooms (those upstairs are not yet ready for visitors).

Separated by a 300-foot path from the Homestead, the Evergreens was built for Austin and his wife, Susan, at the time of their marriage in 1856 by Austin's father, Edward, a lawyer and Whig politician.

A creamy yellow Italian villa in a town where Federal, Greek Revival and just plain farmhouse prevailed, it was designed by a well-known architect from nearby Northampton, William Fenno Pratt. With its flat roofs and a central tower with round-headed windows, it is a fine early example of Italianate middle-class architecture.

Years of Neglect

Inside and out, it has remained a shrine to Victoriana. The high-ceilinged rooms -- parlor on the left, library on the right of the entrance -- still have the original furniture, fabrics, wallpaper, paintings and other artifacts installed by Austin and Susan Dickinson. But the house is in dire need of restoration, so until it can be put in better shape the 4,000 books it once held have been removed for safekeeping to Brown University.

Given the years of neglect, we were not surprised to see peeling paint and falling wallpaper, torn upholstery, timeworn curtains, threadbare carpets and general dinginess all around. But never mind. The house, with its 10 main rooms and a number of smaller ones, is a trove of Victorian antiques and arrangements.

In the front hall, papered in dark red by Susan under the design influences of Charles Eastlake and William Morris, hangs a theatrical painting by Azzo Cavazza, ''Sarah and Abraham at the Court of Pharaoh.'' It depicts a time of stress in their marriage when, having sought refuge with the Pharaoh during a famine, the couple posed as brother and sister to save Abraham from harm should the Pharaoh take an interest in Sarah. Acquired by Susan in 1885 after Austin and Mabel had begun their affair, the purchase is thought to reflect her bitter realization of it.

A Symbol on the Mantel

On the mantel before a large mirror stands a white plaster version of Canova's sexy ''Cupid and Psyche,'' to some a symbol of Austin and Mabel's togetherness. (The black horsehair trysting sofa used by Austin and Mabel in Emily's dining room was brought to the Evergreens by Susan after his death and reupholstered in red damask. It is now back -- on loan -- at the Homestead.) The parlor still contains the Steinway that was owned by Martha Dickinson Bianchi, who inherited the house from her parents.

The dining room, with dark blue paper ornately figured in white, is distinguished by an heirloom Empire breakfront from Austin's mother's family, and a magnificent beamed and paneled ceiling of polished oak, a gift to Austin in 1882 from a Boston architectural firm. An austerely furnished back chamber -- once known as the Dying Room because Austin and his younger son, Gilbert, had each died there -- was converted by Martha into a study, where she prepared her Aunt Emily's poems and letters for publication.